~huu...huu~

Amon was panting while standing barechested on his training ground. In his hand was a blue staff which was three fingers wide and a head taller than him.

Beads of sweats were rolling down from his forehead and chest. In the radius of two metres where he was standing, there was not even a single leaf on the ground.

After a month of training, he had made his conclusion in which aspect he was the best when it came to weapons. The archery and the staff/spear were his best, on par while he was a bit worse when it came to the sword.

He didn't pay much attention to the sword after that because he was happy when it came to his successful learning in the spear/staff and archery basics and decided to spend time on them.

The [Nanquan Martial Art] was also hard but he could feel that he was learning it successfully. His conclusion about this art was that it was ninety per cent of hands usage and ten per cent of legs usage.

It was hard but he reaped results from it and the most important thing was that he liked it. This is what kept him on training this art.

When it came to his spirit rings or just the ring he had, it was also good according to Amon, after consulting Lan. He hadn't spent much time gathering energy, around three hours a day, and now his spirit ring was around three hairs wide.

The reason why there were no leaves around him was also associated with it. He could use mana (mana=spirit energy) to enhance his body parts. It resulted in his speed, strength to increase, but he could stay in this state only for one minute because his energy would run out.

'Time to train a bit archery...'

Amon left his staff penetrated in the ground as he headed towards the crown of a certain tree. There a bow and a quiver with five silver arrows and ten wooden arrows in it, lay. He had only five arrows from the weapon storage that Lan had shown him.

In the manual for basic archery, there were images not just for how to shoot an arrow but also how to craft it and a bow. He had a bow but he decided to just practice how to craft arrows. There were instructions on how to craft a spear of staff in the manual for it, with the simplest materials a human could find - wood and stone.

Another day of training passed for Amon and he decided to visit Lan for another skill book copy. He had memorised the basics skills and decided to learn something else along the Nanquan Art.

Getting inside the library Amon headed towards the bookshelf that was meant for his 'initial' stage of magic. He had decided to pick a leg skill and was soon done with his choice.

[Wind Ripping Kicks]

It consisted of 9 kicks and exercises for the legs and was also an art that could be trained by anyone even though it had Wind in its title.

Skipping through the manual, Amon started executing the leg exercises first, before practising the kicks themselves. He was soon done with the kicking practice as he was all in bruises. The art consisted of three kicks which required the user to have support on the ground, three kicks which could be executed in the air and three kicks which were very hard to be executed, in the air again.

You could classify these kicks as easy, hard and impossible, for Amon at least. He had decided to practice the first three leg kicks but he still fell on the ground most of the time.

Knowing the basics of archery and spear arts, Amon focused on the [Nanquan Martial Art] and [Wind Ripping Kicks] for the following one week. During this week he would also practice a bit with his staff and bow.

It was today that Lan called him from practice. "Amon, the Huntsman squad of the Roger family will be going on a hunt in the wood. They need someone to carry food, arrows and other necessities but there is no one available from the other servants. You have been picked to go with them, take your stuff, you will be going with them, I will bring you there."

Picking up his staff and small bow Amon followed Lan. This was all he needed to take with him. Arriving at the gates of the mansion he was given a big backpack and a bag. "Don't lose this stuff kid else a grave punishment will be waiting for you! Now get on the horse!" Amon was roughly instructing by the servant and jumped on the horse's back.

It was his first time riding a horse so he was quite sloppy when it came to it. Soon three more horses arrived with armoured men on them. These horses were much more muscular than the one Amon was riding on. The rider's faces couldn't be seen because they wore green helmets. "Follow us." One of the riders said as he looked towards Amon.

It was afternoon when they departed but now the sun was setting down. Amon was making fire while the hunters were drinking beer which Amon also served them.

The hunters' names were Bog, Vagil and Sam and they were a bunch of middle-aged men and assholes according to Amon. They treated him like a servant and this made him mad but what made him madder was that he was really just a servant.

The occasion for the hunt was that the young master will be having his tenth birthday and the Rogers will be making a banquet. These hunters needed to bring a Green Tusked Wild Boar for the banquet.

Except feeling like crap, Amon felt the excitement as it was his first time in the forest where magic beasts roamed.

After dinner, most of the beer was drank and everyone was sleeping, even Amon. The hunters drank until late but he didn't worry about keeping guard around these hunters. He woke up around the usual time for him as his body was used to getting up at that time.

Waking up he saw that two of the hunters were awake while Bog was sleeping. It wasn't a long time and soon they departed after they woke up Bog. During the journey, they would mock Amon because he couldn't ride a horse, but Amon didn't really pay any attention to them. He looked at the way they rode their horses and imitated them, with a bit time he understood the way a horse must be ridden.

"I think we should stop here. There is a waterfall a few kilometres ahead and it is likely that there would be a pray for us there. Also, we need to be careful as we are on the border with Rigis kingdom." Said, Vigil, as he jumped from his horse and tied it on a tree.

Everyone else followed him and soon started walking ahead cautiously. After three hours Amon could hear the waterfall, the forest was that silent.

Walking closer Amon saw that the waterfall wasn't that big and high. Thirty metres under the waterfall there was a big lake and Amon could see some ruins there. His water pouch was almost empty so he walked towards the water stream and started filling it up.

"There's something wrong going on here... By now we should have found our pray...can you hear that? It's too silen..." Just as Vigil was about to finish his sentence something bad happened to him.

'Roarr'

Following this roar, a green scaled puma-like wild cat jumped on Vigil and crushed his head under its head sized paw.

"Aah, it's a late-stage Profound beast...Run!" Screamed Bog before getting ripped by the beast. Only Sam was left from the hunters and he was running from the beast like crazy.

Looking at the wildcat Amon looked at the waterfall behind him.

"I'm jumping... damn it I'm not jumping...Lets Run!" Amon knew that it was very likely that he would die but running was currently his only option. Just as he was thinking, the wildcat roared towards him which caused Amon to wake up from his stupor and move his feet.

Just as he started running, his feet slipped and he fell in the violent stream. When he popped up his head from the water he realised that he was already falling.